Occupational Hazards
by Sentomegami
Summary: PostAWE. SPOILERS. Norrington explains to Will about his view of their fates and relates a story from his childhood that shaped him for better and for worse. Follows after You May Kiss the Bride.


_Learned reflexes are old memories_

_So deep and important_

_That one may bury them_

_But they will always be Master._

--

**Occupational Hazards**

--

"Norrington, come join me."

It's after they ferry the first major mass of souls from a sea battle unrelated to Captain Jack Sparrow's adventures to the Other Side. William Turner's eyes are bleak as they stare out over the black, starry nothingness of the misty ocean, the windless night smelling of nothing, of no one, of not one thing alive.

"Captain Turner?"

He hasn't been able to bring himself to ask his father. In the time before Sparrow, the _Flying Dutchman_, and all those other hellish things, Will had always yearned for a father's approval, pushing himself to excel in swordplay, in blacksmithing, in being an exceptional citizen. Even now there is still that yearning, that need to show Bootstrap Bill that he is truly worth of being his son. So, no, he cannot talk to Bootstrap about his fears.

James Norrington swings his weightless body up to sit on the railing of the ship as Will is currently, the breast of his coat open as it often is these days. Sharp, sea-coloured eyes hold Will's gaze without hesitance, his overgrown brown hair tied back at the base in a haphazard ponytail with a black ribbon, the one thing that Will uses on the _Dutchman_ to define his living crew members from his dead ones.

"Your job bothers you."

Will sighs. "Yes."

For a moment, the ghost of the admiral says nothing, turning his bronzed face up towards the sky as if he expects to see something there. After that moment, though, Norrington looks back down, his eyes staring out over the vast waters; into a place only he can see, orbs of sea search flowing seas, bouncing upon the waves.

"You are… about twenty, aren't you, Mister Turner?"

"I would be twenty-one now," Will says after a moment.

Norrington nods slowly and then gives Will a look that seems almost timid, as if they are men again and looking at each other from different cages across a dim hull.

"I was fourteen when I killed my first man."

Will doesn't mean to, but he pales at this admission. Coming from Norrington, a man who still in many ways embodies that sense of what is absolutely right, this confession is like a fist in the gut, digging down deep into Will's heart and making him feel sick. The feeling only gets worse when Norrington's eyes loose their shy light and become radiant with a distant pride in the memory.

"It was my first voyage at sea," Norrington begins with a sudden, strange rush to his tone. "My father had just purchased my commission. He purchased it instead of buying bread and new clothing for my mother and sisters; he'd saved up for it secretly his entire life. One son, one chance; I was to make something of the family.

"We were at sea for maybe a week give or take a few days when we were attacked. I was a midshipman, little better than a cabin boy, and I had never fired a gun or loaded cannons before; that night I learned how to do both. But I hadn't killed yet. You know when you've killed and that didn't happen until early morning. When the pirates boarded the ship, I was below decks, fetching more gunpowder. They had already slain my captain when I came back up."

Norrington stops abruptly and takes a deep breath. His fingers thread through his hair, undoing the lax ribbon and curling the black fabric tightly around his fingers. Will listens with baited breath.

"We used to play a game, the street rats, my younger sisters, and I," he whispers in a pained, visceral tone. "We would play with a kitchen knives, the kinds the butchers threw out, and we would spin them above our heads on strings. When they reached maximum speed, we'd let go and see where the knife fell. Whose ever went farthest won. We called it –"

"'Cat the Rabbit,'" Will finishes before he could stop himself. "I… I used to… In England, I used to see the pickpockets playing that."

A sad, lopsided smile meets his words, and Norrington whispers, "I would always win. And there is no better way to learn how to swing a sword with enough force to take a man's head off."

The former admiral raised his hands slowly, reaching out in front of himself and miming the motion of tying the twine to the handle and then beginning to swing the device around his head. It is an unnerving sight as, with the breast of his coat and shirt open, Will can see the memory in Norrington's muscles easily gliding into the circular motion, the easy tension of a behavior long-buried but definitely not forgotten.

"There is a reason that I became a Commodore as young as I did," Norrington continues in the same low tone. "There is a reason you became Captain of a dead ship as you have. It is our destinies. You can't avoid your birthright; all you can do is accept it."

Norrington releases his fist, sending off into the dark the knife of their mortal lives, the string of destiny, to go land as it would beyond their sight in the starlight as they sail back once more to the edge between worlds.


End file.
